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United Adds Flights to College Football Playoff Games

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Ryan Smith
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Ryan Smith

News Managing Editor

315 Published Articles 468 Edited Articles

Countries Visited: 197U.S. States Visited: 50

Ryan completed his goal of visiting every country in the world in December of 2023 and now plans to let his wife choose their destinations. Over the years, he’s written about award travel for publicat...
Edited by: Keri Stooksbury
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Keri Stooksbury

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Countries Visited: 50U.S. States Visited: 28

With years of experience in corporate marketing and as the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Qatar, Keri is now editor-in-chief at UP, overseeing daily content operations and r...
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Your team travels; why don’t you? As it’s done for the past few years, United Airlines added additional flights to shuttle fans to some of the key college football games this season. Now, it’s arranging its network for the first round of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoffs.

Here’s a look at United’s new routes to serve these on-campus games for the first phase of the playoffs.

Fly United to Your College Football Game This Season

Given the regional location of many of the games, the new routes will mean more United Airlines flights to smaller airports like State College, Pennsylvania (SCE) and South Bend, Indiana (SBN).

Better still, even if you’re not a football fan, you can still take advantage of improved regional connectivity these next few weeks.

The Chicago-based airline’s additional nonstop flights will facilitate travel to all 4 games of this round of the playoffs. Departures will run on Fridays, with return flights on Sundays. The sole exception is the Indiana at Notre Game. This will have outbound flights on both Thursday and Friday (December 19 and 20) with return flights on Saturday (December 21, 2024).

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Matchup

Route

Flight Date

Indiana @ Notre Dame on December 20

Chicago (ORD) and Newark (EWR) to South Bend, Indiana (SBN)

December 19

Newark (EWR) to South Bend, Indiana (SBN)

December 20

South Bend, Indiana (SBN) to Chicago (ORD) and Newark (EWR)

December 21

SMU @ Penn State on December 21

Chicago (ORD), Washington, D.C. (IAD), and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) to State College, Pennsylvania (SCE)

December 20

State College, Pennsylvania (SCE) to Chicago (ORD), Washington, D.C. (IAD), and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW)

December 22

Tennessee @ Ohio State on December 21

Knoxville, Tennessee (TYS) to Columbus, Ohio (CMH)

December 20

Columbus, Ohio (CMH) to Knoxville, Tennessee (TYS)

December 22

Clemson @ Texas on December 21

Greenville, South Carolina (GSP) to Austin, Texas (AUS)

December 20

Austin, Texas (AUS) to Greenville, South Carolina (GSP)

December 22

You can buy your tickets now at the United.com website or via the United mobile app.

Hot Tip:

Learn how to earn and redeem United MileagePlus miles on flights with United!

Final Thoughts

In what’s becoming an annual tradition, United has added more flights to help facilitate travel to college football games. And now that the playoffs are here, we frankly aren’t surprised that the carrier is running these routes.

Let’s go, (enter your mascot here)!

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About Ryan Smith

Ryan completed his goal of visiting every country in the world in December of 2023 and now plans to let his wife choose their destinations. Over the years, he’s written about award travel for publications including AwardWallet, The Points Guy, USA Today Blueprint, CNBC Select, Tripadvisor, and Forbes Advisor.

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